Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has defended accepting £72 million in donations from Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne and rejected claims that it would influence the party’s policy on cryptocurrencies.
He told The Camilla Tominey Show on GB News: “This is a breakthrough moment for Reform. It means that we can level the playing field with the two old parties who have raised far more than Reform has over the last five years.
“Our 270,000 members have got us to this point, but we did need this now so that we actually have the bandwidth to build the team in the country so we’re battle-ready for the general election, whether it’s in a couple of months or indeed in two years’ time, and so they’re actually prepared for government.
“So if we win that election, we do what none of the recent governments have been able to, which actually deliver on our promises. It’s a very, very important moment for us as a party, where we can look to the future with confidence and get on with the job of winning the election.”
Asked if he would rule out giving peerages to the two donors, he said: “I think that’s a very important thing. Absolutely not. Nigel has been clear that firstly, neither Ben Delo nor Christopher Harborne asked for any of those things. We won’t be giving them out to our donors, it’s very important that Reform is different.
“If people give us money, we welcome that, obviously, as long as it’s within the law. But they’re buying into our agenda. They support our agenda, our policies, which is raise the personal allowance to £15,000, to get a big tax cut to working people, bring people’s energy bills down by scrapping net zero, stop the boats. So we end the farce of illegal migration. They’re buying into what we believe in. They’re not getting anything in return.”
He denied that a Reform government would de-regulate and push cryptocurrencies: “No, absolutely not. We’ll make choices that we think are right for the country, not for any particular donors’ business. These are individuals, and certainly these are people who made a lot of money.
“The UK is a very small market for them. They are choosing to do this because they are patriotic Brits who see that our country is in a mess. They’ve lost faith in the two old parties, and Christopher Harborne did give money to the Conservative Party in the past. But these are individuals who think that they have failed, and the only way to turn this country around is for something new, to back Reform and to ensure that Reform has parity with those parties, so it’s got the money that in our system is necessary to fight on a level playing field.”
On President Trump’s comments on uniting Ireland, he said: “Nigel and myself were very quick to call him out yesterday. He’s completely wrong. Reform is a unionist party. The clue’s in the name, Reform UK. We’ll always back Northern Ireland and want to see it firmly remain within the United Kingdom long, long into the future.
“I don’t know what Donald Trump was playing at. Maybe he’s just one of a long line of US politicians, Republican and Democrat, mostly Democratic, who have used Northern Ireland for domestic politics in the United States. I don’t know, but all I can say is this: we’re friends with the United States, but we are going to be very firm with them when they’re wrong.
“Nigel was very firm yesterday. Donald Trump was completely wrong on this, and it’s about time that he had a government in Westminster that backed unionism in Northern Ireland to the hilt, and that’s what we will do.”
